Internship at a Digital Marketing Agency?
Why an Internship?
An internship is the most common way to gain work experience nowadays. Marketing has become one of the most popular industries, and competition becomes tougher and tougher because of the great number of students graduating from high-ranked universities. In this case, students have no other choice but to work out their priorities. Why would they choose me? Is this really something I can do? Will I be able to cope with the amount of pressure? Internship at a social media company? Yes, please!
My understanding of marketing has expanded significantly since I began working for a social media company, and social media is just one huge part of it. Doesn’t matter what kind of marketing you are doing, whether it’s direct marketing or event marketing, you have to deal with social media on a regular basis.
Internships at a social media company
So, why is it worth interning for social media companies? Working for a social media company helps you develop critical thinking, one of the main skills companies are looking for nowadays. Moreover, it keeps you engaged in a global conversation, trends and strategies. You will learn about consumer behaviour, marketing strategies, organisational behaviour and what marketing tricks different companies use to stand out in the world of digital noise.
Interning for a social media company can be challenging in a few ways. First of all, make your ideas stand out among somebody else’s. Take, for example, this blog I’m writing at the moment, how is it different from other people’s blogs on the same topic? What makes you continue reading it? Would you be able to make it better?
What does it take?
The thing is, every marketer considers himself a writer, but having good writing skills isn’t enough. What brings that certain “je ne sais quoi” to your text, and ideas in general, is your personal experience and critical thinking. In this blog, I am not advocating any personality alterations, but rather encouraging you to look at it from a different angle.
But what are social media companies looking for in an intern? Before starting my internship, I found hundreds of vacancies in marketing companies, and all of them were looking for an “enthusiastic, creative person with good communication skills”.
Social media marketing
People think that you can only do marketing if you are an outgoing, enthusiastic social butterfly and anyone who doesn’t fit this description will never make it. Well, here is the good news for all you out there who aren’t sure they can handle being socially active five days a week. Social media marketing mainly deals with digital platforms and targets people through them, so you will mostly talk in print. Creativity and outside-the-box thinking are features of people with a good imagination, but, despite popular belief, imagination does not depend on your communication skills or enthusiasm.
However, do not forget that we live in the world of communication and inventions; you will learn to accept the fact that most of the ideas you come up with have already been created by someone else. People in social media don’t obsess too much about coming up with something new, but rather putting a new twist on existing great ideas.
If you had any doubts and concerns about whether or not you should do an internship in social media marketing, I’d say do it; because even if you don’t end up working in this industry, it will widen your horizons and aspirations, and give you an insight into modern marketing.
written by Danara Kostikova (intern)
